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Officials: No complacency in air quality aims
Published November 8, 2009
News this week that the eight-county Houston region could meet the federal air quality standard by the slimmest of margins drew applause from officials, but there are no plans to become complacent.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality hopes to cut ozone levels even more through programs that promote the use of clean vehicles and reduce air toxins such as benzene and butadiene, while industrial officials say they will continue to buckle down on unwarranted emissions releases.
“And the people of the Houston region will breathe easier for it,” TCEQ Chairman Bryan Shaw said in a news release.
Preliminary figures by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency shows the Houston nonattainment region, which includes Brazoria County and seven others, could meet the limit for the lung-irritating pollutant ozone by one part per billion of ozone, or 84 molecules of ozone for every billion molecules of air. The federal standard, set in 1997, states areas should be less than 85 parts per billion.
The data was compiled over a three-year period starting in 2007 and will be re-examined next year, but the news is good for area residents, EPA spokesman Dave Bary said.
“It shows that the collective efforts of local and state officials have over time shown a great deal of improvement in air quality,” Bary said.
The data comes as a surprise because, in the 1980s and ‘90s, the region’s average air quality reached 100 parts per billion.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry even sought an extra nine years — until 2019 — to comply with the 1997 smog standards. At the time, he said it would be practically impossible for the region to meet its deadline.
Federal and local officials believe the area’s cleaner air is due to tougher regulations, more conservative driving habits, better weather and industry buckling down on emissions violations. Brazoria County has a strong industrial backbone, which includes Dow Chemical Co., BASF, ConocoPhillips and Gulf Chemical & Metallurgical Corp., among others.
Ozone, the key ingredient in smog, is produced when nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds, released from tailpipes and smokestacks, cook in sunlight, according to the EPA.
“We have to get down to an ozone level that’s protective of human health, and we know that this old standard is not protective of human health,” Galveston Houston Association for Smog Prevention Executive Director Mathew Tejada said.
BASF’s Freeport site has reduced air emissions 94 percent since 1987 through initiatives to tighten releases and enhancing controls, spokeswoman Cindy Suggs said.
“We have no greater responsibility than to ensure we are operating our facilities in a safe, secure manner, and in an environmentally responsible fashion,” BASF Vice President and Freeport site general manager Art Colwell said. “BASF has been, and will continue to be, proactive in using the latest technology and necessary resources to further improve our site’s environmental performance.”
Dow developed a set of goals to better compliance by 2015 to reduce its carbon footprint, spokesman Tracie Copeland said. Freeport is home to Dow Texas Operations, the petrochemical giant’s largest site and the largest manufacturing unit in North America.
“We have done that successfully, to date, and are looking forward to achieving the 2015 goal,” Copeland said.
But even with preliminary numbers pointing to better air quality for the Houston area, local and state officials say there is still work to be done.
The EPA announced earlier this year it would propose even tougher air quality requirements — saying the current standard does not provide enough protection against lung damage, heart attacks, asthma episodes and even death — by the end of the year.
“That will decide our next 10 to 15 years of work in the Houston-Galveston-Brazoria area, once they have decided what that standard is going to be,” Tejada said. “And it’s going to be hard.”
But officials think it’s possible if organizations keep pushing forward.
“They’re going to have to use every tool in the toolbox,” Tejada said.
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